


All the things I would say to you

by theystayalive



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Drunk Dialing, F/M, Party, drunk, drunk nancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-16
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-12-03 02:34:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11522730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theystayalive/pseuds/theystayalive
Summary: Request- Could you write a fic where Nancy gets drunk at a party or something (like SUPER frickin drunk) and phones Jonathan to pick her up and she confesses her feelings for him.





	All the things I would say to you

Jonathan definitely did not expect to get a phone call at 2 am. The ring jumped him right out of the shallow sleep he had been in. He rubbed his eyes and sat up further, through his groggy haze realizing that he must have fallen asleep on the couch. A slight groan found its way out of his chest when he squinted at the clock above the television.

When he picked up the phone, however, he was even more surprised when he heard the voice on the other end and the deafening pulse of party music in the background.

“Hello?”

“Jonathan. Hey, I didn’t wake you up did I?”.

Jonathan pressed a finger to his other ear and spoke loudly back into the phone, “Barb? No, no I uh...was awake. Where are you?”

“Tommy’s house. We...well Steve kind of wanted to take Nancy to a party and things kind of went south”. Raised, angry sounding voices suddenly sounded above the music.

He stood up quickly from the couch and tightened his grip on the phone, “What happened? Is Nancy okay?”

Barb paused on the other end of the line and yelled something inaudible away from the phone. She sounded even more exasperated when she came back to the phone, “Sort of? She’s just really upset...and really, really drunk. Listen, I hate to ask you this late but is there any way you could give us both a ride home? We came with Steve and it doesn’t exactly look like he’d be willing or able to drive us”.

Jonathan sighed and rubbed his temple, “Okay, I’m grabbing the keys now. Be there in twenty minutes”.

“Thanks, Jonathan, really appreciate it,” more yelling exploded in the background, “Oh god, I have to go, see you then”.

Quietly, so as not to wake up anyone in the house, he pulled on his jacket and grabbed his keys sitting on the kitchen counter. After scribbling a quick note for his mother in case she woke up, he slipped out the door and started his car.

+++

Jonathan sat in his car and stared at the house in front of him.

The party inside was nothing short of out of control. He could clearly hear the music coming from the house while he was still in his front seat. Extremely drunk teenagers stumbled past the windows of the house holding beer cans and falling over each other. There were two passed out on the lawn.

Sweat was already collecting on his hands and his heartbeat was already picking up. Furiously, he wiped his palms on his jeans and focused on controlling his breathing. Jonathan hated crowds, but even more so, he hated crowds consisting of people he knew, especially from school. All at once, his chest began to slowly tighten and he started to think of every single thing that could go wrong if he stepped into that party.

_Do I really have to go in?_

_Can’t I just honk and have Barb meet me out here?_

_Shit, no no no that would draw so much attention._

_So I have to go up to the door._

_Do I knock?_

_No, everyone is too drunk to hear me, so I should just walk in._

_Wait, but what if I’m supposed to knock._

_I don’t want anyone mad at me._

_They won’t care they’re drunk._

_But what about when I find Nancy?_

_Is Steve going to be there?_

_Is he going to be pissed if I try to take Nancy away?_

_Is he going to fight me?_

_I DON’T WANT TO FIGHT STEVE- SHIT!_

_Wait no. Steve is going to be too drunk to even notice._

_They’re all too drunk._

_Nancy is too drunk..._

He let out a frustrated grunt and sucked in another breath through his nose to stable himself. This was going to be a nightmare. But he was here for Nancy. So, slowly and deliberately, he opened his door and put both feet on the ground. For Nancy.

+++

It was basically everything Jonathan had expected and worse.

As he stepped onto the pathway leading up to the house, he had finally settled on just slipping through the door instead of knocking. It wouldn’t draw too much attention, he could grab Barb and Nancy, walk right out the door, and be right on his way.

Reality, however, was a bit more complicated than that.

The second he opened the door, it slammed right back in his face, making forceful contact with his nose as a staggering body collided with the other side. Rubbing his pulsing nose, he slowly and much more tentatively pushed the door back open and stepped inside.

The place was an absolute wreck. Red solo cups dominated nearly every inch of flat surface. Those that couldn't make it onto said surfaces, were on the floor along with their contents. The smell of stale beer was so strong, he found himself covering his nose with his jacket sleeve and breathing through his mouth. Bad pop music pounded out of a boom box from the living room (Jonathan grimaced at Steve’s horrible, horrible music taste and kept his frantic mind busy by slowly naming, in order, all the tracks off The Smith’s album).

Wasted, sweaty teenagers effectively took up what seemed to be every negative space in the house, squeezing around each other, jostling through rooms, spilling down the stairs, joining into one collective organism to suffocate him. He was half way through the lower level of the house and naming the tracks off of Journey’s Escape album when he felt someone grab his forearm.

He spun around to find Barb staring up at him through her thick glasses. “Hey relax it’s me,” she said quickly as Jonathan let out the breath he had been holding. She motioned to the living room, “she’s in there, come on”.

Barb lead him into the room and his eyes immediately found Nancy. The tiny girl was standing in the middle of the room with a beer in her hand, practically toe to toe with Steve. And she was tearing him a new one. As Jonathan got closer he began to hear her obviously drunken screams more clearly.

“...I don’t CARE what she did you asshole, I literally leave you alone for five minutes and I come back to find you all over another girl!”

“JESUS Nancy you know it’s not what you think-”

“NO THAT’S THE THING, STEVE, IT ALWAYS TURNS OUT TO BE EXACTLY WHAT I THINK”.

“Nancy…” Nancy turned her unfocused eyes to Jonathan who was now standing next to her. It was hard to tell if her or Steve was more confused in that moment.

“Jonathan what are you doing here?”

“Well hello to you too,” he reached down and took the beer can out of her hand, setting it on the table next to them, “I’m here to take you home”.

She blinked stupidly a few times and reached back down for her beer, “Let me just-”

“No,” replied Jonathan a bit more firmly, this time gently taking both her hands in his, “You’ve had enough to drink, Nance. It’s time to go home”.

The fire in Nancy’s eyes seemed to recede a little bit and after a moment she nodded and began walking away with him.

“Hey, Byers, what the hell, we were in the middle of something here,” Steve took a step towards Jonathan but was quickly blocked by Barb.

“Yeah, I think you’ve done enough tonight,” she snapped. She spun on her heel away from the dumb look on Steve’s face and followed her two friends out the door into the biting night air.

+++

Nancy threw up twice before they made it to Jonathan’s car, so Barb had to run back inside and collect a plastic trash bag for the car ride back. The two gently placed both bag and Nancy in the front seat, Barb slid into the back, and they were off.

The first few minutes of the car were mostly silence, occasionally punctuated by Barb giving Jonathan directions to turn at the next light and Nancy mumbling nonsense under her breath. About five minutes in Barb was the one to really speak.

“Hey, thanks again. For coming to get us, I know it was a little inconvenient”.

“Oh, uh, it really wasn’t a problem,” Jonathan adjusted his rear view mirror so he could see her better, “What exactly happened?”

Barb sighed, “Steve happened. Everything was going fine until he convinced her to play beer pong, and she found him on the couch with Missy Roberts about fifteen minutes later. She started screaming, then Steve started screaming and that’s about when I called you”.

Jonathan glanced over to Nancy who sat with her head on his jacket against the car window, her eyes closed He felt his cheeks start to heat up as he saw Barb studying him intently from the backseat.

“She really appreciates you, you know,” Jonathan looked to see a small smile tugging at the corners of Barb’s lips, “She was drunk off of her ass and in the middle of a yelling match but when I asked her who I should call the first name she said was yours,” Jonathan tried to ignore the way that statement sent a jolt through his chest. Barb rolled her eyes and looked back out her window, “We wouldn’t have had to call you if it hadn’t been for Steve in the first place…”

Nancy suddenly laughed so forcefully she let out a snort. Both sets of eyes snapped over to her “You’re so different from Steve, Jonathan”.

Silence fell over the car once again as the two teenagers stared at the drunk girl next to them.

“You actually care about me,” she slurred on, “And you’re soooooo nice to me and I don’t know why you're still so nice to me after I went back to Steve GOD what was I thinking?” Nancy laughed loudly again and laid her head back on the jacket, her voice beginning to dreamily trail off, “What was I thinking?”

Jonathan slowly looked back in the mirror to meet Barb’s eyes once again. The small smile was back on her lips as she gazed back at him.

But this smile was different from the one before. It was more sad, empathetic. In that moment, it was as if Barb knew exactly what he was feeling. What he had been feeling for the last few months.

It was like she knew about every time his chest would ache when he saw them together, every time his chest swelled with anger when he had to sit by and watch Steve treat her like that, every time his heart would swell with something like hope whenever Nancy would touch him, or laugh with him, or need him.

Every time like tonight.

It was right in that moment as they sat in the car with the street lights blurring by and the knowing silence weighing on both of their shoulders, that both teenagers came to the same exact realization.

Jonathan was hopelessly, desperately, and completely in love with Nancy Wheeler.


End file.
